Flowers, Pollen and honey for use in the treatment of Parkinson's disease

Abstract

Honey is nectar collected from plants and produced by honeybees Apis mellifera. It has variable sensory and bioochemical properties due to climate and environmental conditions as well as the different origins of the plants in which it is harvested. Studies have shown that the antioxidant potential of honey varies greatly with the source of flowers. Vicia faba L. also known in Turkey as "bakla," is a genus of the family Fabaceae that is widely grown in Asia. It is abundant in L-DOPA, a therapeutic agent used in Parkinson's disease diagnosis. In this study, a sample of honey has been obtained from a monofloral source in the greenhouse environment where only vicia faba l. was found. The biochemical properties and antioxidant activities of this honey sample were studied. Vicia faba L. flowers grown in greenhouse conditions and pollen and honey produced by bees fed from this flowers were analyzed with HPLC method. The results were quite surprising. L-DOPA content is 4.23% in flowers, 0.98% in pollen and 0.076% in honey. This leads to the conclusion that Parkinson's patients can continue treatment by using only pollen and honey produced by bees that feed on Vicia faba L. flowers. In addition, antioxidant activity of flowers, pollen and honey was analyzed by spectrophotometric methods. Parallel results were obtained with the results previously studies.